NHL Rumors I: Selanne, Alfredsson, Red Wings and Canadiens

Juha Hiitela: Teemu Selanne: “If I had to decide about my career a week ago, I’d say my career is over. NHL career is definitely over.” … “But I don’t need to say my career is over. There’s no need to say anything else. I’ve learned that never say never.” … “I can figure out if I still want to play or not.” … “I don’t need to decide it (playing) right now. Idea of playing in Jokerit is tempting.”

Ansar Khan of MLive: It’s looking like Daniel Alfredsson is leaning towards playing this upcoming season.

“My take is we’re probably going to try to do something with Alfie,” Red Wings general manager Ken Holland said Monday. “He had a good year, 19 goals. When he was healthy, he was valuable.”

Alfredsson is going to start skating this week to see how his back takes, and is expected to join some Red Wings the first week of September. GM Ken Holland isn’t expecting Alfredsson to play all 82 games if he returns.

“Certainly, I don’t look at Alfie thinking he’s going to play 82 games,” Holland said. “When you got (Gustav) Nyquist and (Tomas) Tatar and (Tomas) Jurco and (Luke) Glendening and (Riley) Sheahan, if we can get a certain amount of games out of (Alfredsson), we would feel like he would be a real positive addition.

“But at the end of the day I think he wants to (skate) and we want to see him skate every day for 2-3 weeks and then let’s see how he feels.”

The Red Wings are about $5.2 million below the salary cap with RFA Danny DeKeyser left to re-sign. If Alfredsson is signed, it would put the Wings at 14 forwards on one-way contracts. Tomas Jurco doesn’t need to clear waivers to be sent to the AHL. Landon Ferraro and Mitch Callahan would require waivers. Holland said they are not looking to sign a depth forward or defenseman.

Brian Wilde: The Canadiens could use a scoring right winger, but it may have been a good move not to chase one through free agency. There will be sellers close to the trade deadline.